You know I don't think anyone has yet to invent a *great* system to get CO2 dissolved. You could even add another whole house filter with the scrubbies and downpipe that would give additional dwell time to the CO2 that way. There really is no hard fast rule. I wish I could recall who it was that was experimenting with a recirculating system that recycled the water through a CO2 chamber more than once. It got some interest but then it sort-of fell off the radar and I really wonder what happened to that. The system looked a lot more complex than the stuff we're playing with here. It was pretty slick (practical? I dunno). Suffice it to say that each aquarium is different and each system has to be designed and tweaked to that particular tank. Sometimes it's seems easier to cram a boilerplate concept into an answer to a challenge and forget that the overall goal is a healthy ecosystem that might require more creativity and of course, money

Have you ever checked out the carbonator from a soda fountain? LOL - I have!

OK, so I’ve done some more research, re-read the threads and I have another question:

On the basic set up, water exits tank, runs through the filter, gets injected with C02 either immediately before entering the reactor or Co2 is fed into the reactor through a hole in the top. Water and Co2 mix in the reactor and are then returned to the tank.

Some people have problems with this system in that bubbles still appear. This seems to happen when the gph volume is over +/- 150gph but there seem to be other reasons too.

Why not put an “inline” diffuser (Eg: Atomic) before the reactor?

One benefit to this is that the diffuser arrives as a kit (eg: ready to install on 16/22mm pipe if use Eheimand (I think) two other sizes) and it is probably easier to put it inline than it is to find the parts and make up a “T” that fits.

Wouldn’t this make the reactor even more effective at eliminating visible bubbles?

There are a lot of different ways that people have introduced the CO2 to the reactor. Including the ceramic diffusers. One thing off the top of my head that makes me think they'd be less than ideal is that they like to clog, meaning more maintenance. I personally started out using a Mag pump with a fractionating impeller for a skimmer thinking it would break up the CO2 bubbles before they got to the reaction chamber. I then changed out that impeller with the normal pressure impeller and didn't see any difference in efficiency as far as bubble leakage into the tank. I'm not saying that some form of turbulence before the chamber is irrelevant, just that my and others experience have not seen it proven out in use. There is a lot of turbulence at the tip of the CO2 line at the point of injection.

What about a "rule of thumb" that says the cerges works best with a flow of "fill in the blank" GPH? From what I can see a relatively low flows best: 150gph -- and that is in synch with what disgo says above and what has been said elsewhere on the thread. The exception seems to be when a 20" filter case is used when it looks like a higher flow may work. What do you say?

My experience has been that it's easy to overwhelm the reactor. I started out thinking a high volume pump would process more water therefore giving me a lower bubble count and saving me $ on CO2. That hasn't proven out in reality. The fact in my case is that there's a sweet spot for these things and if you exceed it you're going to get bubbles in the tank. That sweet spot for me is about 100-120 gph. This is a 40b with a Fluval FX5 as the main filter. Lots of water movement, albeit diffused through 30" of spraybar, so there's no water in the tank that's sitting still. I'm pushing about 4-5 bps through the reactor giving me a full pH stop of saturation, making the drop checker lemon yellow by lights-out.

I just made one of these. I also modified the OG design by adding a T to eliminate the need for a drill. HOLY CRAP does this thing blows my ceramic disk outta the park. I am getting pretty much 100% dissolution since i see no bubbles in the tank anymore and I am still trying to dial my CO2 back since my fish are all gasping! . But still, . Great Design!

Actually, so i get soem gas buildup at the end of the day. I purged the system before i went to sleep and this morning i noticed there was still some buildup of gas (no i dont run co2 at night). I am thinking since i use a TOM's surface skimmer, it must be drawing in air which gets trapped due to its low solubility in water. Any ideas what i can do to alleviate this? Thanks!

I'm guessing that you have the reactor somewhere in line with a canister? Hard to know where to give pointers with so little info. Unless you have severe problems with leaf litter or other floating debris I don't see the benefit of a surface skimmer, personally. I was looking to go that way when I began battling surface film, but I tried air stones on a timer for 30 minutes during lights-off period, and the scum went away. Stuck with that since, and never went to the trouble of building a skimmer (the ones being sold by the various companies are way too small for true 600 GPH canisters).

I'm guessing that you have the reactor somewhere in line with a canister? Hard to know where to give pointers with so little info. Unless you have severe problems with leaf litter or other floating debris I don't see the benefit of a surface skimmer, personally. I was looking to go that way when I began battling surface film, but I tried air stones on a timer for 30 minutes during lights-off period, and the scum went away. Stuck with that since, and never went to the trouble of building a skimmer (the ones being sold by the various companies are way to small for true 600 GPH canisters).

Yes, it is inline after the canisters output. I wonder if its a matter of adjusting the skimmer. I use the skimmer primarily to increase oxygenation.

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